


Newt Artemis Scamander

by Aethelar



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: (now with continuation and shipping!), (now with time skip and grandparent!newt/artemis and graves), Genderfluid Character, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-05-16 23:28:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14820950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aethelar/pseuds/Aethelar
Summary: “I wanted to be on a date with Newt,” she says, and Artemis looks at her blankly because she is. Artemis is Newt. There’s only one of them, whichever name they’re using at the time, and though she dutifully switches back to Newt he feels fidgety and uncomfortable for the rest of the afternoon.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> timandstepharebamfs said:
> 
> People always write Newt as ashamed of his middle name Artemis cuz it’s a girl name. And l’m like, it suits him, and Newt thinks about it, it actually fits cuz Artemis is the goddess of wild animals and the wild in general. 
> 
> And i thought of Genderfluid! Newt swithcing between Newt (on guy days) and Artemis (on girl days) and I’m like … Gimme. Gimme it all!

On Sundays, she prefers to be a girl. It’s a leftover habit from school, from lazy evenings in the Hufflepuff common room, fuzzy socks and blankets by the fire. She could curl up in the squishy sofas just the same as Newt, sure, but when she’s Newt she’s ever so slightly taller than she is as Artemis and all sharp edges and bony joints and it’s just… comfier, being a girl. Sundays are pyjama days, and Artemis’ pyjamas are pastel blue with sheep dancing over them and they’re too small for her when she’s being Newt. So on Sundays, she prefers to be a girl.

He goes to herbology as a boy. It starts out as a very silly little thing, which is that he feels the cold less as Newt than as Artemis and though the greenhouses are heated the walk to them is _freezing_. So Newt goes to herbology as a boy, and when he’s a bit older it’s useful to have that added strength to deal with some of the more cantankerous plants. He’d manage just fine as Artemis, but why not use Newt’s broader shoulders if he has them? It’s common sense.

When he dresses for his first date he dresses Newt’s lanky form and asks the mirror to freeze the image, then shifts into Artemis to examine it. He has a better eye for design when he’s being Artemis. He doesn’t really know why, he just does; Artemis has a better eye for design, and in potions Artemis has a better nose to tell when the potion’s gone wrong. Sometimes though the ingredients just stink and Artemis wrinkles her nose and slips into Newt to ward off the smell.

(The date is in a coffee shop and he orders hot chocolate, and when it comes he switches without thinking because chocolate tastes so much better to Artemis than it does to Newt. The outfit pulls in all the wrong places and she’s undone all her hard work but _chocolate_ \- her date stutters mid sentence and asks, in a quiet, ashamed voice, if she’d change back. “I wanted to be on a date with Newt,” she says, and Artemis looks at her blankly because she is. Artemis is Newt. There’s only one of them, whichever name they’re using at the time, and though she dutifully switches back to Newt he feels fidgety and uncomfortable for the rest of the afternoon. There isn’t a second date.)

In fourth year, he grows several inches taller - but only in his male form. He shifts into a girl and her robes trail on the floor and hang over the ends of her arms. It takes her a month to perfect the shrinking and expansion charms, and it’s only when the charms professor points it out that she realises she’s better at shrinking charms as Artemis and expansion charms as Newt. It takes another month to fix the discrepancy.

In sixth year, her wand starts rejecting her. Only her though - it works just fine when she’s being a he but it sputters angrily in her hand when he’s being a she. Her head of house sniffs and advises her to just stay as a boy for the remainder of the year, and he tries, he really tries but how can he? Sometimes he’s a he and sometimes he’s a she and she doesn’t understand why her magic is rejecting half of herself.

She goes to her brother and tucks herself into his chest and cries. He takes her to one of the wand suppliers the auror department use for their second wands, one that deals with alternative materials, and suggests she find a wand for Artemis and leave the original one to Newt.

She goes one better. She finds a dual-core, dual-wood wand that sings for her _whatever_ gender she is, and leaves her old Ollivander wand in her trunk for the rest of the year. He also, whenever he spots his head of house, makes a point of shifting into Artemis and raising her chin in defiance at the hidebound professor because _sod him_ and his restrictive gender view.

He goes to war as a man. His soldier uniform has never been resized and he doesn’t own the tight-waisted skirt suit that the women wear for parades. When the war gets too much, he sneaks out to the dragon sheds as a girl and curls up against their leathery scales. It’s not the same as being in her pyjamas in the Hufflepuff common room, but it’s similar, and she feels better for it.

He travels as a man, too. It’s easier, in most places, to be a man travelling alone than a woman, and she can handle the discomfort of her body feeling wrong for a bit if it keeps people from trying anything on her. It also means that she does most of her breaking and entering as a woman; Artemis becomes one of the most wanted women in Beijing, but she tucks her hair behind her ear and slips into Newt as she walks down an alley, and Newt strolls out through customs with no one looking twice.

Sometimes, people react strangely to him. Sometimes, they treat her differently when she’s a woman to when she’s a man, and they won’t listen when he tells them that she’s the same person he’s always been. After a while, she gives up. Her creatures don’t mind; he’s Mummy to them whether he’s a boy or a girl, and Mummy is something she’s very happy to be.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... whoops, I continued it.

When Jacob first notices he asks, “Is this one of those magic things?”

Artemis pauses. It’s magic that allows her to shift outwardly between herselves, magic that lengthens her limbs or shortens his, magic that sharpens his features and softens hers. But inwardly? If she didn’t have magic, if she couldn’t change what she looked like on the outside, would she be trapped as one or the other?

“I don’t think it’s a magic thing,” she says slowly. “It’s just who I am. I don’t think it only applies to magic people.”

“Oh,” Jacob says, and adds it to his list of things he’s learnt that day: occamies hatch from silver shells, mooncalf pellets float, and people can have multiple genders.

Artemis blinks when she realises how simple it is for him and Jacob smiles bemusedly when he notices. “Why not?” he asks with a shrug. “I didn’t know magic existed until today either.”

 

Tina worries when she discovers. 

MACUSA governs a society that lives by secrecy, by being unnoticed and not standing out. Tina watched helplessly as her brilliant younger sister smiled and lied and said she always wanted to work tables rather than politics; she was too young then to know how to protect Queenie against a world that felt threatened by her differences. Now Queenie doesn’t need her protection (she gets it anyway, because Tina will never stop being her big sister no matter how terrifyingly competent Queenie is without her) but Newt, Artemis, both of them look at the world with wide eyed naivety. 

“I don’t mind,” Newt says when someone makes a cutting remark. “The important people don’t care. Why should I worry?” He smiles, awkward and half hidden, and if he sees the bigger picture, if he knows the danger that can rise when people think their snide comments are ok to make - if he realises what could happen, he doesn’t show it.

So Tina worries, and she hovers, and when some bright young idiot thinks he can make a joke of taking Artemis to the men’s room or of picturing Newt in sequined dresses - Newt might turn back to Pickett and pretend not to hear, but Tina makes damn sure they know she heard. She also makes damn sure they know not to do it again. And when she’s done, she spits fire and prowls around Newt’s shadow and makes damn sure the rest of the room took note.

She won’t let Newt be kept from his dreams the way Queenie was kept from hers.

 

“Why do you pretend it doesn’t bother you?” Queenie asks once. 

Artemis throws her a wide eyed, guileless smile that does nothing to hide her unease and shrugs, deliberately casual.

“There’s not much point being bothered,” she says.

The point, Queenie answers, is that she’s allowed to be. She shouldn’t have to hide it. Shes allowed to be angry at the way people dismiss her.

Artemis concentrates on the fwooper she’s grooming. Her thoughts churn. Queenie waits.

“My brother is six years older than me,” she finally says. “We overlapped at school for a year. He spent almost every Friday in detention because of me.”

She straightens a skewed feather.

“Jacob is a muggle. The fact that he even knows about magic is illegal, but he risks everything to square up to a wizard who treats me wrong. Tina - she thinks I don’t notice the bridges she’s burning. She’s making half of MACUSA her enemy just because they looked at me funny one time, and she shouldn’t. Not for me.”

The fwooper clicks its beak imperiously and Artemis holds her hand out with a treat. It takes it with a delicate chitter, fluffs its newly immaculate plumage, and leaves in a flurry of pink.

There’s more that Artemis doesn’t say, more than she knows how to put into words. She’s lived with it her whole life. She doesn’t  _like_  it, the side eyes, the way she makes some people uncomfortable, the way some of them try to ignore it and override her choice of name and gender and identity. The way those few that knew in the war tried to regulate him to the sidelines and keep him from fighting; the way her closest of female friends eventually pulled away from her because she was a guy, she wouldn’t understand, these things weren’t for sharing with her.

Of course she doesn’t like it. But as much as she wishes she wasn’t she’s used to it, and she likes even less the thought that her brother, her family, her friends are in trouble because of her. Not that she wants them to stop, because she doesn’t, because the fact that they care enough to speak up for her is - is - it’s more than comforting, more than important, more than  _anything_  but they shouldn’t have to make themselves outcasts just because she is, and isn’t she, in some way, selfish for wanting them to? But  _how_  could it be selfish to want what everyone else seems always to have had, to want the easy acceptance and for people to just  _stop_  making a thing of it, but - but -  _sod it._ But _._  It’s just a mess. A tangled, confused mess in her head that she doesn’t know how to put into words.

“Isn’t it their choice?” Queenie asks, gentle and kind. “A lot of people are a lot of things behind the person they pretend to be. When Tina or Jacob learn that someone is cruel, or stupid, aren’t they allowed to say something?”

Artemis frowns. “But - “ she starts, and she doesn’t know how to finish. If she weren’t sometimes he, the hateful thought starts, people would be kinder; if he weren’t sometimes she, it whispers in her doubts, people wouldn’t look away. 

Queenie leans close and pulls her into a hug.

“Honey,” she says. “Honey, no. You’re not  _making_ anyone do anything. Nothing about it is your fault.” Artemis mumbles something, maybe a denial, but it’s muffled against Queenie’s shoulder. “Believe me,” Queenie says drily, “They were cruel long before you came along. They just hid it better.”

Artemis laughs weakly. “Even from you?” she asks, and Queenie’s voice is that tiny bit bitter, that tiny bit weary when she answers, “No one hides from me.”

 

The first time Artemis shifts in front of Graves is when some damn buffoon put his coffee on the top shelf of tiny auror kitchen and he can’t reach it, and without his coffee to start the day he’s in exactly no frame of mind to manage a levitation spell. He snarls at it in helpless frustration, his empty mug clutched to his chest like a battle wound, and Artemis rolls her eyes and stretches up into Newt’s lanky frame.

“Do you want me to start the coffee machine as well, or can you handle that?” he asks, tongue in cheek and unable to hide his grin. Graves glowers at him and shuffles to the counter like a caffeine-driven zombie, blindly stabbing buttons until the water starts percolating into his mug.

“Smartass,” he accuses once his coffee is brewed and he’s vaguely resembling functional again.

And, because he can, Newt shifts back into Artemis and raises a hand to her mouth in mock outrage.

“Such language, Mr Graves sir!” she simpers, batting her eyelashes to complete the over the top effect.

Graves raises an eyebrow, unphased. “Smartass,” he repeats - and mentally makes a record of the way Higgins has frozen in the door, eyes bugged out and staring at Artemis. He adds it to the tally and mentally reshuffles his day to make space for auror training in training room… three. Three should do it.

“Higgins,” he barks as he strides out of the coffee room. “Target practice. Eleven thirty. Don’t be late.”

Higgins squeaks a protest behind him and Artemis trots to keep up. “Target practice?” she asks. “Why, what did he do to you?”

And Graves doesn’t say  _it’s what he did to you that matters_  because Graves has allergies and feelings set them off, so he busies himself with his coffee and pointedly doesn’t answer.

Mind you, Higgins was new. It might have been genuine surprise. Graves is, potentially, willing to be lenient if it was genuine surprise.

If it wasn’t genuine surprise then Graves has a new auto-loading potion launcher that he’s been meaning to try out. Just. Just by the by.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time skip! With bonus Tonks because WingedWhale wanted Tonks :)

Graves meets Tonks at a guest lecture, one he’s giving to the UK auror department as a favour to an old friend. He stays after to answer a few questions and there’s this one bright young spark that has, like, a  _gazillion_  different things to ask. Far more than will fit into the one evening, so Graves leaves her his contact details and runs. She’s still asking questions even as he backs into the floo, it’s actually impressive.

And, somehow, he keeps being impressed. She’s clumsy, true, but he’s seen her be graceful when she needs to be and with the right bit of training he thinks she could be truly terrifying. Owled questions and the odd training sessions turn into mentoring sessions over coffee turn into  _the potions labs here are rubbish, come round to mine I need to teach you a thing_. He introduces her to Newt as his new apprentice and Newt reads between the lines and therefore treats Tonks as a new granddaughter. Hot cocoa, fresh-baked scones, knitted mittens in winter - the works. Newt  _aces_  this whole grandparent thing, and Tonks can’t help but love both of them. Her real grandparents, remember, are Blacks - worse, they’re Blacks who struck her mother off the family tree. She’s never had anyone quite like Newt and Graves. They’re  _perfect_.

Except, once, she lets herself in the back and there’s a strange woman in the kitchen in her pyjamas. Tonks stops dead.

“Where’s Graves?” she asks hesitantly. He’s out, Artemis tells her. He’ll be back soon. So, “Where’s Newt?” Tonks asks, even more hesitantly. Artemis gives her a funny look, but answers that he’ll probably be back soon as well. Tonks smiles awkwardly and asks her to let Graves know she called.

Once she’s back in the safety of her own home Tonks shuts the door and sits down heavily against it and tries to convince herself that neither of her adopted grandparents are having an affair. She shakes herself. Of course they’re not. Newt and Graves are as in love as it’s possible to be, it’s not physically  _possible_  for either of them to cheat.

Except the woman doesn’t go away. Sometimes she’s in pyjamas, sometimes she’s in flowing dresses with shiny necklaces, sometimes she emerges from Newt and Graves’ shared bedroom in a rumpled dressing gown with her hair up in curlers and her feet in fluffy slippers. She moves around the house like she’s familiar with it. She kisses Graves hello once, and he calls her Artemis and kisses her back. She’s never, ever, in the house at the same time as Newt.

Tonks stares at Graves and wonders if Newt knows. Worse, she stares at  _Newt_  and wonders if Newt knows, and there’s something heartbreakingly sad there because you’d never know to look at Newt and Graves that their marriage was anything but happy - except Graves is a cheat and Artemis is a homewrecker and  _does Newt know_.

Eventually, Graves sits her down. “Look,” he says, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “About Artemis.”

Tonks feels her face freeze, and tries to keep her voice from sounding as wooden as she suddenly feels. “What about her?” she asks, carefully neutral.

Graves pauses, searching her eyes for - well, Tonks doesn’t know. He can’t expect her to just accept what he’s doing to Newt, can he? Apparently though he does, because he finally asks, belligerent and decisive: “What’s the problem?”

Tonks’ jaw drops. “The problem?” she repeats. “You’re married! To Newt!”

Graves scowls. “Actually it was Artemis at the alter,” he says. “She wanted to wear the white dress.”

And that’s, that’s  _worse_ , because, “Does Newt know he just a, a,  _misstress_  that you’re having an affair with?”

“I’m a what?” Artemis asks, wandering in with a tray of tea and biscuits.

“He’s a what?” Graves repeats, blinking in confusion.

Tonks looks between them and gets the sudden feeling she’s missing something. “What?”

“… We asked first,” Graves says. “What, exactly, do you think is happening here?”

“And do you want a gingersnap or a chocolate whirl?” Artemis chimes in.

They both look at Tonks expectantly, every bit her loving grandparents and every bit  _not_ two people caught in a torrid scandal of love spurned and marriages broken. The feeling of missing something starts evolving into the creeping dread of having fucked up and not knowing where. “Where is Newt?” she asks in a small voice.

Artemis deflates slightly, but still passes Tonks her tea. There is, Tonks notices, one of each biscuit balanced in the saucer. “Newt’s not here right now,” Artemis says, quiet and sad. “Would you rather talk to him?”

And it’s not that Tonks doesn’t like Artemis, because  _apart_  from the whole breaking up Newt and Graves’ relationship - even if, apparently, it was Newt breaking up Artemis and Graves’ marriage - Tonks loves her. But. “I just want to know where he is,” she says, hunching over her tea.

Graves makes a strangled choking noise. “Tonks,” he says slowly. “Nymphadora. Are you aware that Newt and Artemis are the same person?”

Artemis blinks. “Well of course she is,” she says, frowning at Graves.

“Uh,” Tonks manages.

“Honestly, what a thing to accuse her of,” Artemis continues.

“ _Uh._ ”

“I mean, really, she’s even a metamorphagus herself. Saying she doesn’t know - Graves, don’t be so mean to the poor thing.”

“UH.”

Artemis, who is apparently Newt, who may or may not be some variant of metamorphagus and apparently thought Tonks was a lot more observant than she actually is, finally turns to Tonks with a hesitant smile. “… right?” she asks, nodding her head encouragingly.

“Not. Not exactly.”

Graves facepalms. “An affair,” he mumbles to himself. “A bloody  _affair_.”

Artemis sits back in her chair and looks somewhat lost. “You didn’t know?” she asks again.

“In my defence,” Tonks feels the need to point out, “Neither of you ever actually  _said_.”

“Cheating on my wife with my own damn husband,” Graves continues, manfully swallowing a giggle.

“Shush, you,” Artemis tells him. “You’re not helping.”

“But,” Tonks soldiers through. “Now I know. So, so now that no one’s a homewrecker, can we please move on?”

“ _Homewrecker._ ” Graves wheezes. He waves a hand in Artemis’ vague direction. “Scandalous wench, my god, how could I have never seen it before, leading me astray with your wily charm.”

She kicks him in the shin. Tonks drinks her tea (hot, too hot) and wonders if it’s too late to ask for some sane grandparents.


End file.
